It’s July 2013 and I’m walking from Hovey Cottage when I glimpse this casually dressed guy behind Forest Hall walking his yellow Labrador retriever. I’ve just lost my best dog to cancer, so I’m jonesing for canine affection. I turn toward the dog.
A few steps in I realize the Lab is being walked by our new president, Greg Hess, just in from California. I don’t know him beyond his campus interview, but he’s no doubt noticed me by now.
So my first exchange with the new boss is about dogs. I kneel down to pet this friendly nine-year-old Lab named Kaia and enjoy the most relaxed, unselfconscious conversation I’ve had with a Wabash president. Funny how dogs tend to humanize a situation.
I leave wishing I’d brought my camera. We haven’t had a president with a dog since I began working at Wabash in 1995.
Fast-forward to January 2017, and Lora Hess is welcoming Wabash social media writer Christina Franks and me to Elston Homestead for that long-awaited photo op.
She tells us Kaia fulfilled two promises when the family moved from Ohio for Greg’s previous job at Claremont McKenna. First, to their daughters: “When we move to California we’ll get either a swimming pool or another dog.” Second, to Greg: “You can get a Lab this time.”
And Kaia is named after Ohio’s Cuyahoga River, but spelled out phonetically so people won’t mispronounce it.
Greg walks in and the conversation turns to the day he proposed to Lora (July 4th); the day they were married (New Year’s Day); where they spent their first anniversary (the Sugar Bowl); what the family enjoys doing together most (travel). They talk about their daughters, Abigail and Meredith, and they ask Christina about her own upcoming wedding.
It’s time for Kaia’s close-up. Greg gently corrals her, and we get the photo we came for.
But what lingers in my memory are the words about family and romance in a place where I’ve usually covered official events—an unofficial moment with the folks who actually live in this historic home, and my favorite visit to Elston Homestead in 22 years at Wabash.
—STEVE CHARLES